Essential Swedish Grammar

by Julian Granberry

Overview

Designed for those with limited learning time, this book is not a condensed outline of all aspects of Swedish grammar. Rather, it focuses on simple everyday communication, helping students use previously learned phrases and vocabulary more effectively and with great versatility.
After introductory discussions of vocabulary building, word order and the formation of negative sentences and questions, the author offers concise, easy-to-follow coverage of the parts of speech. Numerous examples are included to demonstrate each rule of grammatical usage with the emphasis throughout on simple constructions rather than complicated ones. A selection of useful expressions and a glossary of grammatical terms round out this excellent, inexpensive guide, perfect for self-study or as an adjunct to a language course.
Whether you are just beginning the study of Swedish or wish to review the fundamentals, Essential Swedish Grammar enables you to learn in a systematic way, at your own rate, guided by your own requirements and interests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486116280
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	06/14/2012
Series:	Dover Language Guides Essential Grammar
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Essential Swedish Grammar

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By Julian Granberry

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1991 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-11628-0

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INTRODUCTION

Essential Swedish Grammar assumes that you have a limited amount of time at your disposal to study Swedish and that your objective is simple everyday communication, both spoken and written. This book, therefore, does not attempt to offer a complete outline of all aspects of Swedish grammar, even in a highly condensed form. It does, however, offer a series of aids to help you use more effectively phrases and words that you have already learned. This book will introduce you to the most common structures and forms of Swedish and a selected number of the most useful rules.

How to Study Essential Swedish Grammar

If you have already studied Swedish in a conventional manner, this book will serve as a review, and you can use it by glancing through all of it quickly and then selecting those areas on which you wish to concentrate.

If, however, this is your first acquaintance with Swedish grammar, the following suggestions may be of help:

1. Before beginning to work your way through this book, master several hundred useful phrases and expressions such as you will find in any good phrase book or in the Listen & Learn Swedish course. The material in this book will be much more easily understood after you have achieved some simple working knowledge of the language. This book's purpose is to enable you to gain greater fluency once you have learned phrases and expressions, not to teach you to construct sentences from rules and vocabulary.

2. Read through Essential Swedish Grammar at least once in its entirety. Do not be concerned if some of the material is not immediately clear; what appears to be discouragingly complex on first reading will become much simpler as you progress in your study. The first reading is necessary to acquaint you with the terms and concepts used from the beginning. Learning these will help you improve your comprehension of Swedish and use more freely the expressions and words you already know. As you use Swedish and hear it spoken, many of its grammatical patterns will become familiar to you. Essential Swedish Grammar helps you discover these patterns, and it will be helpful to you as you develop your vocabulary and improve your comprehension.

3. Go back to this book periodically. Sections that at first seem difficult or of doubtful benefit may prove extremely helpful as you progress further.

4. For the most part, Essential Swedish Grammar follows a logical order, taking up the main divisions of grammar in sequence. You will do best to follow this order. However, you may be one of those who learn best when they study to answer an immediate question or need (e.g., how to form the comparative of adjectives; how to conjugate "to be," etc.). If you are such a student, turn to the section that interests you at the moment, but read through the entire section and not just an isolated part. Individual remarks, taken out of context, are easily misunderstood and may seriously mislead you.

5. Examples are given for every rule. It will be helpful if you memorize them. If you learn all the examples in Essential Swedish Grammar, you will have encountered the basic difficulties of Swedish and studied models for their solution.

6. You cannot study Swedish or any other language systematically without an understanding of grammar, and the use and understanding of grammatical terms is as essential as a knowledge of certain mechanical terms when you learn to drive a car. If your knowledge of grammatical terms is a little hazy, read the Glossary of Grammatical Terms (p. 70) and refer to it whenever necessary.

In Swedish, as in any language, there are potentially many ways to express a single idea. Some involve simple constructions, others more difficult ones. Some of the more difficult constructions may well be more sophisticated ways of conveying the thought and ones that you will ultimately wish to master, but during your first experiments in communication in Swedish, you can achieve your aim by using a simple construction. Be satisfied at first with the simplest.

You should not, however, be afraid of making mistakes. The purpose of this book is not to teach you to speak like a native but to allow you to communicate and be understood. If you pay attention to what you're doing, you will find that eventually you will make fewer and fewer errors. Sooner or later you'll be able to review Essential Swedish Grammar or a more detailed book at a time that is appropriate for polishing your speech.

As you begin to speak Swedish, you will be your own best judge of those areas where you need most help. If there is no one with you, you can practice by speaking mentally to yourself. In the course of the day see how many simple thoughts that you have expressed in English you are able to turn into Swedish. This kind of experimental self-testing will give direction to your study of Swedish. Remember that your purpose in studying this course in Swedish is not to pass an examination or receive a certificate, but to communicate with others on a simple but useful level. Essential Swedish Grammar should not be thought of as the equivalent of a formal course of study at a university. Although it could serve as a useful supplement to such a course, its primary aim is to help adults study on their own. Of course, no self-study or academic course, or even series of courses, will ever be ideally suited to all students. You must rely on and be guided by your own rate of learning and your own requirements and interests.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Essential Swedish Grammar by Julian Granberry. Copyright © 1991 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Page,
INTRODUCTION,
SUGGESTIONS FOR VOCABULARY BUILDING,
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS,
PRONUNCIATION,
WORD ORDER,
HOW TO FORM QUESTIONS,
NEGATION,
NOUNS AND ARTICLES,
ADJECTIVES,
ADVERBS,
PRONOUNS,
PREPOSITIONS,
CONJUNCTIONS,
VERBS,
TELLING TIME,
USEFUL EXPRESSIONS,
A GLOSSARY OF GRAMMATICAL TERMS,
INDEX,